Love was never the answer
by Ellered
Summary: Basch/Ashe: He never mentioned love, but when he thought it would be proper to say, it never came up. M for mature situations.
1. Chapter 1: Love Was Never

**Title: **Love was never the answer.  
**Pairing/Characters: **Basch/Ashe (The Queen and her Knight)  
**Rating: **M/ For mature readers please.  
**Summary: **Telling her that he loved her was never the answer, it just never came up.

* * *

"What was your homeland like, Basch," she said, finally, after their would be marathon of what would be called, to the average citizen--lovemaking, and this pleased her too much, he noted, because she giggled like a little girl when she snuggled deep into his arms. He almost blinked, and it wasn't because she was incapable of such things, it was just _so new._

All this newness amazed him, perhaps, or was it because she was so striking, and before--- not so long ago, when her thighs gripped him, there above him, riding him hard and he could only grunt in shameless need---his hands holding her hips tight, pushing himself up into her.

Even afterward, he could breathe, he spoke, quite serious,

"It was much like Dalmasca, the geography appeared similar; and conceivably, that was why I felt an instant relationship here, the first time I set foot.."

He was interrupted by her kissing—she hardly allowed him to finish when they lay there on the expansive bed. Lady Ashe liked to grab him, there—beneath the thin sheet that separated their skin from the cool air, and there, her fingers teased the hardness, the length of him that she awed in chide fondness against his lips, "Oh, you're ready again. Gods, I want…"

He closed his eyes then, was on the verge of throwing her down on her backside, or did she want to take it from there? He had forgotten then of what was on his mind just seconds before until--

"Yes, tell me more…" she cooed, begged, licked and her brazenness made him shudder, and even though he hadn't expected to get half way through or even, if gods willing _complete_ the tale, he would be spent before the day was out. She pulled him atop her, where her legs just managed to wound around his hips and tightened.

"Oh yes, there," she gasped, mouth open along his neck, touched her tongue against his hard jaw; and he felt the heat of her indulgent kiss; felt the way her heart thumped against his chest. He reached to place his hands behind her, where his hands had found the defined, slim back---the soft lines, and the sweat-- sheened and sweet against satin and friction.

His hands reached down, found her bottom, pulling her into him, and it was easy to slide in---so many times—silky and burning, caving around him like an overwhelming vise grip, achingly sweet---_so Ashe. _And she was always---to his continued admiration, his eyes dazed from everything of her---experimental and demanding.

Even as she gripped his shoulders, rode her legs high, above so that he could push into her with force—too much so that he knew she liked this, her continued mewling and impassioned cries muffled against his neck. She bit him, hard, and he never minded, even as his release came much later.

Where his skin became a testament of her nails, the bruises of his skin marked by her teeth, it hadn't mattered to him one bit. But, there was this rise of something beneath his chest—pounding harder and tore at his senses, so loud he could barely hear the deep timbre of his voice when he tried to speak, to tell her things he longed to say.

Love, sometimes draped in the air, suspended, stopping time; it was caught between the tall towering towers, above and beyond, where the pink and the blue sky meet. It slid, went down like honey with hot tea, and it went shifting through their fingers, like sticky nectar, and the damp heated kiss of dusk.

When she took dinner with him, she became this perfect lady, poised and beauty was her destiny—and a princess she had been forever---until her crown brought her the independence she needed. This was where she ruled best, his lady looked at ease and at place there upon the highest chair, pale hair gleaming, lips wet from the flick of her tongue.

He would toast to her, bring the glass to his lips while trying to keep his distance. And she sat there, toasting her guests, bringing the goblet streamed in Dalmasca's jewels held in the air, her head turning to the right, bent, listening apt to the decisions of politicians, jaded rulers from neighboring countries, and the long list of visitors all come to see and give their respect to the queen.

Nay, love was never mentioned. It was suspended and hung in the air, like the draping unsoiled clothes of the poor in the lower depths of the underprivileged. Because, that was where love usually reigned, between the hopefuls and the longing, wishing for love to take them far from the wretchedness of a hard living.

"Do you even want to know?" He asked her one day, when they had finished. She was pushing her skirt down, tidying up, and shaking the dust off her perfect skin; she looked flushed, stained pink from his kisses.

Lady Ashe looked at him, eyes bright and the colour of lust still clinging to them, "about what?"

"About my homeland? My family? Do—you," he paused, realizing that perhaps it would not be such a grand idea to mention family. Particularly since it meant mentioning his twin and perhaps that was all forgiven and it was the past. Still, memories were fresh and such things like that, did not mean people would ever forget the pain.

He was surprised again. She smiled at him, brought her hands up, to caress his face, touch the planes of his profile, kissed him gently, "Aye," she breathed, "I want to know everything about you, Basch."

His lady brought her hand down, folded her fingers into his and they walked, out into the sunlight hand in hand. It was the first time they strolled into the garden, chatted intently about the past and about his life. It was for the first time, that he felt closer, if ever that was even possible. Closer to his queen, and her closer to his heart; he could not understand why even as the finishing of the tale--- while there was always more to tell---that in the end, he found himself reaching for her.

Basch heard the soft inhalation, as he kissed her hand, the length of her slender arms and until, his lips found hers, under the great shaded tree, and where he couldn't help it, because he was hard long before she thrust her tongue inside.

Love was never there in words, because it never came up. She never said one word about anything that dealt with such things. She just took her clever tongue, placed it around him, surrounding all of it, slick and wet, lapping against the length, with her eyes looking up; she sometimes gave him that look of damning sultry innocence and without shame. If indeed she possessed any.

He couldn't know which was which, because most of the time there was nothing but pleasure and sometimes, pain. In the end, where he thought he would break, his head thrown back, gasping too loud, he would haul her up, until she covered him. He would drink into the feel of being inside; and he would push into her again and again. Even in closing, Basch felt, with blemish of sweat along his temple-- the wetness darkening his fair hair---a part of death stole his soul.

And sometimes, when he was alone, he would cry a little inside, shaking at the intensity of their relationship. He, who had always been so apart from such frivolities, had been reduced to this, imagined too much— fantasizing about her.

He never knew the tug of jealousy, not the way most men had always displayed it—either with the end of their blade or with fists, and he hadn't known that he, eventually harboured such a prickly tongue: the edge of it analogous to his twin before. Never knew it existed, perhaps, because he couldn't bear to see her laughing with another man, even if such matters were nothing to fret.

And what was worse, he felt the tightened heat between his groin when she placed a demure hand over another woman, her lips grazing against the cheek of another, sweetly innocent it may have been but she looked over at him with those intelligent eyes—sharp and knowing, and licked her lips—just slight.

But in the presence of others, she was a queen, regal and bearing all of the genes of the long line of Dalmascan royalty. Nay, this wasn't a lady to be taken lightly, and knew that the first time she told him as a child that she thought him strong and powerful, her eyes, youthful and ages young.

Love was never, ever the case. Did she tell her former husband that she loved him? Did words tear them apart? How was it that she knew when he was about to proclaim such silly praises, because he felt--or thought--so that the moment came: where the timing would have been the perfect that his Lady managed to pull his strings again, by taking over—rendering him senseless.

"Tell me about you," he asked her on another day, they were riding together, on their chocobos, facing the sun. And it sounded ridiculous because he should have known all this time, of her history. Infact, it was every Dalmascan citizen's right to know, to understand about the history of her royal line.

It sounded hollow and foolish, and he swallowed, sweat clung to his neck not from the Dalmascan heat, but from his fleeting nervous disposition. But his Lady told him that she would ask a race first before she would embark on such a journey. She spoke this with a dimpled smile, eyes twinkled with obvious mischief, and she would tell him about what she thought of _him_ when she first saw him.

He laughed, rich and deep sounding to his ears, and the world appeared rose coloured, as the sky streaked purple below, "You were but a child, my Lady, I would deem to think you thought not much of me."

"Nay, Basch, I thought too much of you and, of….Vossler." she said it with such honesty, that he understood.

But, there was not a trace of jealousy there in his heart, even for his departed friend. Even as her eyes turned away, he saw before she closed the curtains there, of what she thought of Vossler.

Love was never mentioned. It was just not the way of things. Her way was with her hands, fingers, lips, and every touch. She would only cry out his name when he tasted her, kissed beneath her skirt, felt the heat of her thighs, breathed in the musky, delicious flavor of her.

Love was never the question. It was not something that revealed itself through the rolled scrolls, drenched in thick dried wax, and it was certainly not from anything that came from tongues of lovers. Because lovers, they eventually die, grasped in a hold of two shades of skin, one darker, one lighter, or tones just tinted from the aging sun. These things, they weren't even said, because it was never the ending answer. And where he held his lady in some kind of absolute, psychosis of bubbling dedication, whether that was because he was simply feeling the rush of blood or the damning instinct of the biological make up, he could not possibly know.

And certainly, not from wishful thinking, or the way his lady just enjoyed grabbing, tugging at him; and to beat him senseless in a mental arousal of abuse. It was just not ever mentioned between their bruised kisses, or the way they took the risks, and played between the hours of tea and bedtime.

In time, when she was with his child, she would transfer and share her love and adoration to another. He thought of their child as this beautiful being that looked too much like her, with the same hair, paler than his, and eyes so bright and intelligent---they looked to his---and told him, with fond little fingers touching his strong jaw, that she loved him.

Maybe his heart felt like crying, dying, all at the same time, and the wetness in his eyes wouldn't stop, so he'd hold her tight, not seeing that his Lady Ashe was standing there, watching them--only so—when he opened them—to see her smile at him, in that way.

Nay, love was never, at least not ever mentioned between them.


	2. Chapter 2: Ashelia's Love

A/N; this fic is in the same story-arc of the previous chapter, but happens before they have children.

_**'Captain, shake off this trance, and think of home-  
if home indeed awaits us**..._

_--quote from Odyssey._

**_=8=_**

She becomes alive with pleasure, sinks her teeth into his skin, gentle and firm, a warm heat of lips and tongue on his neck. When she is done, she pulls herself behind him, braces her fingers over the width of his shoulder, taking one last squeeze of his arm, to feel the slight flex of his muscle. She is satisfied, like a coeurl purring when its claws have been filed. Ashelia finds an earlobe, kisses him beneath, and finds a moment to steady herself.

"What is it that you want out of the rest of your life?" she asks him, a muffled giggle against the top of his shoulder, her hands flat against his chest, between the rough jerkin and skin; the length of moonlit-brown hair spans out like a fan along the blades of his shoulder, and he leans a little to catch the sweetness of her breath. She tries to sit comfortably on a tiered pillow, so she's able to accommodate her body closer, and he likes the heat of her skin.

He knows, when she's like this, throws him questions, she is contemplative, the openness of her personality bears the fruit of her emotion. He has come to know this, has come to seek the affection of her lips and hands.

"you have asked me that before," he tells her with a hint of a smile, his lips grazing across her cheek as she bends her head down, cradled in the nook of his neck, breasts flat against his back, and he hears the release of a sigh.

Her thighs are pressed against his waist, legs forward, calves flexed against the safety of warm skin, and her finger traces the edge of his jaw, prickling against the roughness of his trimmed beard.

"but you never answered." She places a kiss, pressing softly against the corner of his mouth, and he turns to capture her parted lips, bringing her to kiss him fully, and she moans as he reaches for the generous pile of her hair, gentle weight against the back of her head.

When he's done, he pulls back, to look into her half closed eyes, "what shall I answer? Shall I tell you what you want to hear?"

She smiles, "I'm stronger than that." And he sees that she is, has always been, despite the insecurity that used to plague her: a woman once, without a kingdom, a princess for so long, without a title. She is, not sweet, not conventionally beautiful, and sometimes disagreeable. But her cheekbones verbalize the long lines of her gods, of her bloodline and of stretches of desert kings that ruled.

"I have a surprise for you, Basch."

"I care not for surprises." He tries, always to be unaccommodating, because it makes her eyes turn a shade of grey; dark blues solitary in the heat of her skin against his, and clear-lit bottled water against Dalmascan sky, like shards of glass when she's angry.

She places a finger across his lips, "shush, speak no more, and when I return, pretend to be surprised," and she pulls away slightly, only to be pulled back into his kiss, and they kiss for a long while. It was slow, sweet, and warm, so that he's dragged her body down, inch by inch on the mattress of the settee. When he's released her, she gazes at him with the kind of affection he thought he'd never see for him.

Her palm caresses the cheek that once stung by her anger, and she gazes longingly at the way he sinks his eyes into hers, "I shall miss you again…" she tells him, hears the choke and trembling of her voice.

"I shall return to you, once again. I have made Dalmasca my home, it has always been since I left Landis. For now, I take my brother's place until Larsa is of age, and no longer needs my protection."

She brings his hand over her flat stomach. The span of his hand warm against her naked skin. "Once the child is born, you shall have to protect us."

He swallows, pride swelled beneath his chest, expanding, so much so that it hurt him even to speak. He is speechless.

She saves him by continuing, pretends to be unaware of his pain, "There is still Zargabaath, and, are there not any other Judges that are in training?" she asks this as if there is still chance for his presence to become more than temporary, but she knows better. Even as the dawn leaves her alone and she wears her crown with pride. She was Ashelia with company, with friends and those she had come to love; but now, she is Ashelia with Dalmasca's brilliant tiara, jewels pointedly facing the four summits of the world; the bondage of queen and isolation.

He brought her body close, tightly pressing as if he couldn't let her go, breathed the warm tide of her hair into his face, where he's lost into the fragrance of her.

And when he releases her, she moves gracefully, out of his arms and gives him one last look before disappearing into the next room. A door shuts, opens, clicks shut again, and when she reappears, she is holding a basket, the simple patterned cloth hides what's beneath. But he could see some movement. He chuckles despite himself, as she plants into his lap her surprise.

He looks at her with smiling eyes one last time before pulling the material aside, and a very yellow chickatrice peeps out, chirping once its sleepy eyes receive the light.

He laughs, they both laugh, and she helps first by placing her palms against the softness of its feathers, lifting the baby into his arms, "he shall grow and be a grand and noble beast to stride upon while you ride through the foothills of cerobbi steppes, and fare the unnatural winds of tchita.

"He's wonderful," Basch tells her, his eyes watering, and he tries to blink back the tears of joy, because she's been wonderful. She's pulled aside the conventionalities of her crown, disregarded protocol to be with him, even for a moment. She is, queen, after all, and her people love her too much.

"I will return to you, soon, Ashelia." he reassures her again.

"I shall be waiting, Basch."

Basch leans in to steal another kiss, drawing them together, the tiny chickatrice chirps between them, held softly against the outstretched arms and spanned hands, flaps its wings, until it finds a cozy place between their laps.

**_=8=_**

* * *


End file.
